Highland Tales Series Box Set

by Rory B. Byrne

  “What can we expect to find over there,” Fraser asked. “And what are you calling the place? We’ll need a name for the FOB.”

  Fraser sat upfront in the center of the seating arrangement, studying the map of the chamber. He needed assurance that it wasn’t a one-way trip to death for him and his men. It was Simon’s presentation, but Fraser interjected with too many questions for the lecture to have cohesion.

  “What kind of resistance are you anticipating? That hole, all I see is a lot of darkness and wet groundswell. Convince me. We’re not walking into our deaths.” He glared at Simon. His men grumbled and mumbled restlessly around Fraser.

  Simon shook his head. He hated the ignorance of the group. It was as if the moment Fraser and his militia arrived, the IQs dropped exponentially in the barracks. It made Simon feel his mental awareness and his insight into the mission held more value than any of the mouth-breathers Fraser brought with him. The group had one purpose: to protect the asset once the portal opened. Brian hired Fraser to protect him. If they encountered more creatures on the other side like the beast they had locked up in the Quonset hut, the militia knew their purpose

  “It’s not so complicated,” Simon said.

  Simon ignored the men sniggering as he walked around the table in front of the wall screen. He stepped around Brian and took the dry erase marker from the tray. Simon did his best to draw a circle on the whiteboard in red. Instead of trying to replace the cap, he tossed the marker aside. He then grabbed the blue dry erase marker and popped the lid with his thumb. Simon drew another overlapping circle, offset from the first red circle. Then he threw it back into the tray.

  “Think of it as another Scotland. It is identical in scope as here. If the folklore proves correct, I call it Elphame. It’s the elfin lands that past generations understood better than anyone today. It’s the same here as it is over there.”

  “How do you know that?” someone asked. “How do you know that the air won’t kill us?”

  Simon pointed to the hallway leading out of the bunker. “You know that creature still breaths the same air as us. It’s older than you can imagine. Our best guess is that it’s at least eighty to ninety years old, based on its genetic markers. It’s a male with similar reproductive organs as most mammals.”

  There was a quiet among the men. Each of the soldiers took the time to acquaint themselves with the creature. Brian had the beast tested and experimented on ceaselessly. So far, he refused to have it destroyed and dissected. Simon knew once they captured another one of the creatures, the first one’s life would end, even though it was formable and resistant to specific weaponry.

  Each of the men had a dossier on the creature, compiled facts about its strengths and advantages. The men understood its predatory nature. The beast had ambush skills, with speed bursts up to 25 mph. The creature weighed close to 1000 pounds. Its length from snout to stub tail was over two and a half meters. Its rear legs had shorter span than its front limbs with massive claws over thirty centimeters. The hooked, retractable black talons added another twelve centimeters to its giant mitts. Its claws had parotid glands that secreted a milky alkaloid substance with neurotoxins. It allowed the monster to swipe at prey with an immediate response from the strike.

  On top of that, the beast had a measured bite force of 3,700psi—the same bite pressure as a saltwater crocodile. The overlapping plates made of diamond-shaped keratin around its neck, forehead, and back made it impossible for the creature to kill with small arms fire. Its snout had a jaw structure that allowed its mouth to open and close at 80° for the snapping pressure of the bite. It was a giant-killing machine that was unstoppable at full gallop.

  The bite had toxins, much like a venomous lizard. It survived eating carrion, mostly dead sheep and goats. Brian’s outside helpers culled meat from the local herdsmen. People didn’t ask questions about hauling away dead sheep when cash exchanged hands. Its handler was a retired big game hunter and an alcoholic. He had lost his eye to a tiger fifteen years ago, and Brian bought his silence and skills handling man-eating predators. The old man wasn’t interested in exposing the unusual beast to the public as long as he had a bed and a bottle to crawl into every night.

  “How many more of those things are over there?” another man asked.

  “There could be a significant amount of creatures over there, just like the one we have in the specimen holding cell,” Brian said. “We can’t be sure.”

  “Look, it’s best to think about it as a place that is Scotland, but not quite. Think of it as the place where unicorns live.”

  “There’re unicorns over there?” someone asked.

  “We simply don’t know the answer to that,” Brian said. He stood near Simon on his right side. Simon knew the missing arm made everyone uncomfortable because it was a visual reminder of the dangers of the new lands.

  “It could be Pangaea over there; it could have identical geographical similarities as here—”

  “What’s Pangaea?” someone asked.

  “It’s the beginning of the world as we know it,” Brian said. “It’s the supercontinent that happened around the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. After Pangaea, the continents drifted apart.” He had a look that made Simon realize that Brian had a plan for the portal, and he needed Simon only as a small part, a tiny piece of something much bigger than anyone else around them.

  “We are at the beginning of something extraordinary. Each of you in this room, I promise you, will see that we have access to an entire world if you follow me into this new land. It can be ours. People will pay to set foot in this new place. They will explore and build. They can hunt new exotic animals. If the speculations are accurate regarding the geography, everything that is here is the same there. That means anywhere we have oil deposits, gold, and diamond mines, we have access to each of them.”

  “Yeah, but, won’t that, you know, lower the value of those precious metals and stones?” someone asked.

  “Does it matter?” Brian said. Simon saw that manic twinkle in his eyes. “What if you had a new breed of unicorns or fairies? Every kid in the whole world wants a fairy they can have in a birdcage.”

  “A fairy cage,” someone shouted. It got laughs.

  “Don’t cheapen the experience,” Brian said. “We’re talking about stepping into a whole new world that’s accessible. It’s not like a few brave men stepping on the moon or orbiting earth. We’re talking about 196.9 million square miles.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the surface area of the earth, you moron.” Simon continued with his original observation. “We speculate that at one time the portal remained open constantly until something caused its collapse. Throughout the centuries, it pulsates open and closed. It allows people to pass through, sometimes sheep and goats. And sometimes creatures from the other side come through to earth.”

  “So, like unicorns and stuff.” It didn’t matter who said it. The thirty physically-fit but dimwitted men in Simon’s mind all had juvenile humor that included them sharing fart jokes.

  “We have a rich tapestry of folklore regarding elves and fairies. People through the ages wrote about creatures they saw in the woods, creatures with no fossil record. Think of it as a place where Bigfoot or the yeti lives. It is as vast as the entire planet.” Simon stared at the crude drawing of two worlds side by side, overlapping, or sharing time-space. Whatever it was that kept the two earths linked, he knew there was a doorway, and he had a way to open it now.

  “What about the woman?” Fraser asked.

  “What woman?” Brian responded.

  Fraser motioned at Simon. “That chic, the nurse, whatever she is, you brought up from the hospital in Shieldhall. She doesn’t fit into our plan. What is she doing here?” He stood up from the chair in front of the lecture area, in front of his men. Simon stepped away from the whiteboard. “You see these men, Mr. MacIomhair. I person
ally vetted each and every one of these guys. They are bad-asses, and all of them will take a bullet to save your life.”

  “Because you’re paying us to do that,” someone said from the back.

  It got a resounding amount of cheers and applause. Simon saw Brian smiling at the gag at his expense.

  “But that bird, I don’t know her. I don’t know nothing about her. How do we know she’s trustworthy?”

  Simon didn’t know Karen Mackin before the amputation. Her appointment at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital to assist in his rehabilitation came with luck. Simon found Karen alluring, and her enthusiasm to take a sabbatical from the hospital to stay with Simon meant she liked him. Karen had no family ties in Edinburgh, and admittedly had no relationship with anyone in the city. She came willingly, and Simon didn’t want to leave her behind.

  “I’ve done a background check on her,” Brian said. “I feel confident she’ll stand fast when we finally take our first steps into Elphame.”

  Hearing Brian say the name gave Simon a sense of validation.

  “I had her checked out, too, Mr. MacIomhair. I don’t know what service you use, but I don’t think Karen Mackin is her real name.” Fraser looked at Simon as if to wound him with words. “She showed up at the hospital eight years ago. Before that, her hospital credentials have her graduating from University of Nottingham with a degree in physiotherapy. But I can’t obtain her transcripts from Nottingham.”

  “That means nothing,” Simon said defensively.

  “It means everything.” Fraser stood face to face with Simon. “You have poor choices in women, my friend.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Brian asked.

  Fraser glared at Simon. “Talk to your friend here. How do we know she’s not working for another organization, or maybe she’s a plant with law enforcement, some government agency like MI5?”

  “She’s not a spy, Mr. Fraser. There’s nothing to hide here.”

  “No?” he asked. His eyebrows jumped up on his forehead. “We committed a few felonies for you already. We did what we needed two days ago, Mr. MacIomhair. The police are on the doorstep, investigating the structure fire. That kind of planning and execution doesn’t come cheap.”

  “I’m paying you more than enough for your loyalties, Mr. Fraser. I don’t believe this is the place to question or renegotiate our contract.”

  “I think this is a perfect time and place,” Fraser said.

  Simon saw the mercenary men grow restless. Their fearless leader wanted to suck the marrow from Brian’s bones. Whatever assets the man had left were about to leave him jammed deep into the mercenaries’ pockets.

  “You want us to risk our lives to go through a portal that’s untested. You have us performing tasks that potentially leave trace evidence. We’re not here for courtesy, Brian. We’re here because you and your man here need our protection. It’s just like last time this fool risked everything for that woman.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brian asked. Simon stood between the men. Simon knew that not only was he the subject of the conversation, but Fraser brought up the whole business.

  Fraser removed something from a pocket in his BDU pants. He dropped it on the table at the front of the lounge.

  “What are those?” Brian asked.

  “You need to ask your man about those glasses.” Fraser pointed at the prescription glasses. “That’s what’s left from eight years ago.”

  Simon recognized the reading glasses. They once belonged to his lost love. He’d hidden them in his quarters. Though it was a private sleeping pod onsite and off-limits to everyone else, it hadn’t stopped Fraser from snooping.

  “Are those Phoebe Biel’s glasses?” Brian asked. It was so far off center that it surprised Simon the man recognized the item. “Where did you get them?”

  “From your friend’s cabin,” Fraser said. “Mr. Hinton has a secret, and I think it’s important we all know about it before we risk our lives for you or him.”

  Death and Healing

  Police Inspector Alice Lemont woke gasping for clear air. Her lungs hurt so much it felt like a dump truck was parked on her chest. The acrid stench of black smoke and burnt human hair assaulted her nose. There was a hint of something else, something cooked, the sickly sweet scent of barbequed flesh. She wanted to move, but too many pieces of her body ached. There was an intense pressure at her back; the fabric of her nightshirt seared her skin, or something covered the surface area. It was uncomfortable, a constant reminder of something terrible that happened to her.

  Suddenly, Alice remembered the fire. The walls of black-gray and scalding miasma saturated her, drowned her. The intense heat had singed her eyelashes, scorched her lungs. The upstairs corridor had closed in on her, forcing Alice to her knees, and ultimately provoking her to slide on her belly across the blistering runner in the hallway. Towering walls of fire licked at her face. It was as if fire beasts clawed at her, tried to rip the flesh from her, and twisted the air to poison with their pungent, smoky breath.

  Alice felt death had finally snatched her from the hallway floor. It pulled her from the conflagration and pitched her into the cold night sky. It then occurred to Alice, through the severe throbbing of her body, that she had clarity. She had breath, a heartbeat, and wondered why death didn’t leave her to burn in the structure fire that destroyed the Weatherspoon Guesthouse.

  Alice blinked and still saw nothing. Her arms lay draped across the flat surface of what she presumed was a bed. It was too dark, too quiet to understand how she survived, and the location wasn’t a hospital. Alice tried to move to pull her arms closer to her body for leverage. The backside of her shoulders and across her back felt like boiling acid that charred the flesh. The rear side of her thighs and calf muscles felt taut like the sinew and muscle baked against her femurs and lower limbs.

  As the pain made Alice aware of her surroundings, she remembered more of what had happened. The fire, smoke, and lack of proper smoke alarms all came back to Alice as she lay on the downy surface. Shirtless and without pants, Alice was laid out on her stomach. Someone had tended to the burns on her back. She still couldn’t move; every fiber of her body felt raw and exposed. It was as intense as touching the surface of the sun.

  Her vocal cords, scorched from smoke inhalation, felt brittle in her throat.

  “Water,” she rasped.

  A figure shifted in the shadows. Alice heard the creak of a rocking chair. She heard shuffling over creaky floorboards. More of the space came into focus. Alice saw an antique bedside nightstand. She saw a small leaded art nouveau lamp with a green slag glass umbrella shade. It was intricate with curvilinear designs of foliate and floral scrolling. The illumination from the light was little more than a candle in a dark tunnel. The room smelled of dampness, moist leaf litter, and outdoors. Alice saw wall dressing, tapestries, and cracked, peeling wallpaper. It was a bedroom the size of a matchbox.

  “Tea, dear?” the old voice asked.

  “Water,” Alice whispered.

  The soft sound of two ceramic clacking pieces told Alice she was somewhere civilized, somewhere that didn’t involve a burning house. The thought caught her, and she gasped. It hurt her chest, and her back screamed with the motion. Again, she tried to get up, and yet, she failed.

  “The Weatherspoons,” Alice whispered. “Beth—Rory, I need to—”

  “You need rest, dear.” The figure shuffled closer to the bed.

  Alice saw arthritic hands, twisted fingers, and swollen knuckles under taut soft alabaster skin, the fingernails yellowed and tarnished, curled long over the fingertips. The spindly hands had the velvety flesh of an older woman with age blotches and a hunched disposition.

  A fragile teacup pressed against the corner of Alice’s mouth. She did her best to tilt her head and sip. It was tepid tea, a silky liquid that went down her scorched throat and felt like
liquid ice, as if healing her throat from the inside. It tasted like brackish water. Alice drank more, gulping. It dribbled down her chin, splashed on the thick rope rug under the bed.

  Lying on the low bed, Alice saw the old woman’s feet in the slippers. The thick blackened toenails grew like talons out of broad flat toes, poking over the front of the open-toe slippers. The woman had three perfectly formed toes on each foot. Tufts of gray fur sprouted from the knuckles.

  Alice wanted to turn more. She wanted to see the face of the older woman. The billowy housecoat and the lingering stench of cigarettes told Alice the kindly voice belonged to, “Marcia,” Alice whispered.

  “Aye, dear, you are doing better than I expected.”

  The old woman placed the teacup on the nightstand. Alice felt something lift from her back. It draped over the flesh again, making Alice wince.

  “The burns almost took your life,” Gramma Marcia said. “If I had more caoineag spit, you’d be up and about a lot faster.”

  Alice had to do a lot more thinking. More of the night came back to her. She remembered looking for Beth and Rory. The fire consumed the property so fast it was as if accelerant fed the flames. She remembered more but—

  “Did you say spit?” Alice asked. Marcia’s words eventually seeped into her throbbing skull.

  “Aye, lass, caoineag saliva, there is nothing better for healing. Caoineags disappeared from here some centuries ago.” The old woman shuffled across the floor, away from the bed. She stooped to reach into a rusty bucket. Alice watched from the bed as the gnarled hands withdrew muddy rags from the bucket. “The caoineag have amazing qualities, much lost in this world.”